


I feel certain I’m going to rise again

by goatdad



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Sort of a character study, lots of watery metaphors, post-fragmentary passage, some good cathartic girlpain, very existential
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-11
Updated: 2017-05-11
Packaged: 2018-10-30 15:10:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10879377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goatdad/pseuds/goatdad
Summary: Sometimes she dreams about standing on shores like this. In her dreams, the sun kisses her back and the water is full of busy life. Fish swimming against her legs and little algae squishing between her toes. She’s at home, there.





	I feel certain I’m going to rise again

The sound of the ocean was always so crisp, so soft. Even if she had grown up far from it, there’s just something about the waves lapping up against the shore, causing the sand to become sticky, holding tightly onto her feet that made her feel at home. 

Sometimes she dreams about standing on shores like this. In her dreams, the sun kisses her back and the water is full of busy life. Fish swimming against her legs and little algae squishing between her toes. She’s at home, there.

As the years passed by, biting away at the corners of her hope, she always found herself returning to a place just like this. Where the farthest thing from light settled in the distance, far and unobtainable. She’d be tempted to dip her feet inside, to feel the current take her away like a message bottled up, bobbing on the surface, waiting to be found. But she wouldn’t even dare. Not for a lack of courage but for a lack of faith. 

Oh, she knew she’d be found one day. 

Maybe not as the person they’d come looking for. She knew she was far past that by now, too many pieces of herself were missing, whittled away with every hour, and it ached. As a child, she had grown up on stories about great and mighty warriors who had fought against a sea of hopelessness, managing to succeed against waves that had tried so desperately to drag them down with a kind of might that she now knows is…something only really reserved for stories told to little girls by old men. Old men who had never faced the kinds of things she had. Never fought the the kind of odds she had. The true story is that hopelessness will drag you down and you take water but still continue to fight against the current for the rest of your living days. It makes you simultaneously stronger and weaker in will but you keep going for as long as you can.

Maybe that was what made the ocean feel more real to her. 

Tying the sides of her clothes around her waist, Aqua waded into the current, slowly feeling her heart tighten with every inch she entered, the water happily swallowing her until she stood hip-deep in the cold tide. She felt both heavier and lighter at the same time. Fingertips brushed against the surface, leaving little waves that trickled outwards and she smiled, faintly, down at her own reflection, distorted but still recognizable. She wanted to hold that girl that reflected back. To cradle her in her arms and kiss her age weary eyes and tell her it’d be fine. To let her weep and cry in her arms as she anchored her close, keeping her from floating away. She wanted to wash the dirt off of her face and let her rest in the water in a baptism that would wash all these years away. 

The reflection had stopped smiling at that and she watched as her own face pinched into a pained expression, her own body shivering and letting out a shushed whine. Digging her fingers into her own arms, she tried to physically hold herself together; not a good time, not a good place to do this. Her heart wrenched a sob from deep within her and she could feel her nose run down her face, hitting the water below. Her grief was too great. Curving up and over to watch her own reflection, dangling her head only a few inches over the surface, she stared into that face with wide eyes, taking in every detail. The red nose, the watery eyes, even the crinkle of her forehead in pain; she felt exposed under her own gaze. 

Like the image of a ghostly woman- lost between realms, eternally trapped as she was when great tragedy befell her- she cried out. Mourning what was lost, what she could’ve had. What she could’ve been had not everything was taken from her so young. So young. Without a single hand to comfort her. She wanted to be taken by the sea. To be swept away and broken free from the bounds of her sorrow. But, from what was taken from her, came resentment and from that, came anger. She struck out against the dark reflections that surrounded her own, as if she could beat them back and keep them from hurting her any further. Her knuckles burned from breaking the surface and made her want to cry even more but she held strong against it. She knew better. She wasn’t going to be Ophelia, lost from the neglect of those around her, pulled away by the tides but like Aphrodite who was love and grace and hope born from the water, itself no matter how cruel and boundless it was. 

And she was. 

Nursing her hands from her own recklessness, Aqua caught her breath, giving herself some time to wipe her tears, and work around her newfound headache. Taking a handful of water, she brushed parts of her face with it to clean herself, scrubbing the smudges off of her cheeks and wiping the snot from her nose. There was something very comforting about realizing that she could still find solace in the sound of the waves lapping in the distance even after all this. After all, there was a kind of familiarity in it. Maybe because she’d become more acquainted with the sea since she’d been here and, while this place changed and altered with time, the ocean was a constant. A reminder of her days passing by as both a blessing and a curse. 

Descending into the depths, she felt it swallow her whole, inviting her like a temptress and an old friend. A she went under, she felt peace in the darkness- like a pearl safely curled away in a oyster- sheltered away. Hidden from the rest of the world that might want to use her for her worth. But she couldn’t hide forever. She knew that. 

With a swift kick off the bottom and she broke for air, pushing her hair out of her face and laughing. Cackling, almost. There was something so funny about her predicament but if you had asked her what it was, she probably couldn’t be able to say. Nothing she could explain with words. 

Floating back to the shore was easy until she tried to stand up. It felt like the water was trying to pull her back in, keeping her tired body heavy and waterlogged, but she knew better than to go back. “Another time.” She whispered as a promise. Not like the water had the ability to care or even respond back, but, she was at peace with what it gave her. What it had cleansed from her.


End file.
